InfiniteNature wrote:Battles don't last very long, endurance is more of a strength waiting for the battle or alternatively say tolerating gee forces, or say humping stuff to the battlefront, not during the battle.
Not so. Battles can and do last for long periods...longer than someone with no military experience might think. Hamburger Hill in Vietnam was a lengthy bloodbath. Handling the (loaded) weapons, toting your gear at the same time...it indeed requires both physical and mental endurance. The full array of combat harness, coupled with a kevlar vest, several fragmentation grenades, several high capacity (30 round) banana clips strapped to you, a full canteen of water (a must for emergency first aid), and the rather heavy kevlar helmet on your head all add up. If your rifle is affixed with an M-209 20mm grenade launcher (and most are), then you are also carrying quite a few 20mm grenades. An infantry soldier does not simply show up and remain in one spot. A squad is constantly on the move in combat...and as I can attest, 10 minutes of infantry squad life will leave you breathless, and drawing upon your inner reserve. The soldier that sits still in a combat zone is a dead soldier. There are methods of movement in any situation, even when you are facing supression fire from machine guns and a mortar barrage.
The argument is that predujudice is responsible for the exclusion of women from the military historically and during today from certain roles. Come on does predujudice last over periods of 100s of thousands of years, which is the period men have historically been in combat or fighting as opposed to women.
In ancient times, women were the key to producing sons for families, which in many ancient cultures = power, and the assurance that a family would remain viable. In addition, they were also viewed as property...valuable property not to be sacrificed. A thorough response to this truly belongs in its own thread...but suffice it to say, until recently, the Western world treated females in much the same way.
There are women fighting historically but they do not outnumber the men fighting, Is that predujudice?
If women were a asset why have they not been used more often, if they truly were equal with regard to capability to fighting?
As I've posted previously in this thread, generally speaking, males as a rule possess a higher degree of upper body strength than females do, due to the typical male physique of larger muscle mass and skeletal structure being concentrated in the upper body. Typically, the female body concentrates muscle mass and skeletal support in the pelvic area, hips, and thighs. Weapons are wielded in the hands and arms, whether it is a sword, a musket, or a CAR-15 assault carbine. This has not changed over the many thousands of years of human warfare.
The big change here would be removing all barriers to women in combat roles. The barriers keep women who are otherwise physically qualified for the job from doing it. Removing the barrier should not = changing standards so *any* female, regardless of upper body strength and stamina, can do it. The *requirements* of the combat role are what should determine fitness for combat, not gender, as it currently does.
Today's world is a world of increasingly fluid roles. Not so in ancient cultures, where you were pretty much born into your position. For a woman to work out and build up her biceps, pecs, etc was unthinkable at that time, and probably not possible given the limited scientific knowledge of the day.
There has to be a logical reason other then predujudice that men have historically done the fighting, and if so what reason...
I think I answered this above. Women in many ancient cultures were considered property - valuable property - that assured a family's continued existence in a society. They produced
sons. Males dominated most of the ancient cultures, and were the only ones permitted to own property, for example. They were the ones to inherit a father's power and prestige.
It just seems that historically that there might be a downside to having women in the warfare, otherwise societies with women in warfare would have survived, and I wonder if that reason might still be a problem?
Long ago, there
was a downside. In this day and age, there isn't. There is no logical reason to deny a physically qualified female a combat role. Modern analysis has revealed there is no psychological basis for exclusion. Males are not necessarily "better suited emotionally" than females are for combat. A good friend of mine that I stay in touch with was a sniper during Desert Storm. He has nightmares about his first kill. When he tells the story, it is unsettling, and surreal. The Iraqi soldier was in his nightvision scope...a man who was targeted for extermination by command. By the way, American troops were conducting operations inside of Iraq
weeks before the ground war offically started back in 1990. In the split second it took for him to pull the trigger and place a bullet through the man's heart, he was struck by the horror of it all. Here he was, over 700 meters away, and in an instant, looking through a scope with a sense of detachment, he ended a man's life.
This is more common than you think. Soldiers who have seen combat are haunted for the rest of their lives...some, more severely than others.
However, since that time I have discovered that is not so. Thank goodness. 
